Happy Friday and here is our regular portion of the Raid Digest!
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Let’s take a short break between numerous raids and battles and revise our positions. Hence, without further ado, let’s get straight to it.
Right from the beginning of this year, we have been seeing a lot of comments about the changes in the Classic Arena overall and the matchmaking algorithms in particular. That’s why we want to shed some light on the current state of things in this area.
As you may remember, in October 2020, the new matchmaking system was introduced in the Classic Arena. It constituted the creation of a list of opponents with roughly similar account levels and player power. The new matchmaking system, among other things, calculates the difference in the players' power when forming the list. While it may not be perfect yet, it allows to create a fair competition in the Bronze and Silver Tiers and to prevent pairing players with vastly different experience at early stages of the Arena. This matchmaking system also maintains the difficulty curve of the feature. The power difference between accounts plays a huge part in forming opponents' lists in the Bronze and Silver Tiers. However, the Gold Tier is the most competitive one, so it doesn’t filter opponents by their account power, but uses the current Arena placement as the main criteria. That's why, upon entering the Gold Tier, you might experience a greater difficulty in further progression as you encounter a much broader list of opponents.
Basically, Gold is the Tier where the strongest players go, while having more or less perfected champions’ Skills, gear and choice of allies. This Tier should be challenging, and the ones who manage to reach Gold should be ready to keep fighting strong opponents to remain competitive and stay in the Tier.
Last fall, all of you witnessed low-level accounts appearing in the Gold Tier of the Classic Arena, and it helped a lot of players reach Gold relatively easily in a short period of time. The reason why those accounts appeared in the game was that we added more segments to the server, so that the load would distribute more evenly and the server would feel better during the activity peaks. As the result of it, low-level accounts started occasionally appearing in all Tiers (since the algorithms started to take these new segments into account while defining opponents in all Tiers). Still, this was a temporary phenomenon, it couldn’t last forever. We realized back then that those accounts would disappear from Gold, eventually. That was rather a deviation than a new order of things. As time passed, weaker accounts were gradually demoted to lower Tiers, and now the Gold Tier has become as competitive as intended.
The recent trend of steadily increasing difficulty in the Gold Tier of the Classic Arena is an aftereffect of the mechanics mentioned above, and the gradual demotion of the low-level accounts added to the game in October. Since fewer and fewer low-level accounts were popping up in the Gold Tiers, the overall league's competitiveness had increased. Therefore, many players who quickly passed through Tiers and propelled themselves to Gold 3 and Gold 4 by their attack power alone, have now started losing their footing due to possible breaches in defense strategies and stronger players having an edge in these Tiers.
Let's sum it up: because of the higher level of competitiveness in the Gold Tiers, it is becoming yet harder to compensate losses in defense battles with victories in attacking battles only. That requires revision of def teams and searching for more effective combinations.
Another important question that we want to talk about is Arbiter Missions, since the Classic Arena is closely related to these, as well as to many other in-game activities. Looking back, let’s recollect what Arbiter Missions were all about. Arbiter is not a regular Champion - she is a top Legendary who has been considered the ultimate game reward for a long time. Thus, the Missions should not be too easy to complete. Nevertheless, we truly believe that none of these Missions should block your progression to Arbiter. That's why we closely monitor the situation by checking the analytics and data at our disposal to make sure that it is not a “mission impossible” thing.
It is also worth mentioning that the Arbiter Missions help reveal your weaknesses in the game and motivate you to improve these areas.
We want to thank you all for your constant feedback about the Arena that we receive from various social media. Rest assured that we are continuing to closely monitor statistics in the Arena and all Arena-related features to spot any possible anomalies. The current Arena situation is the result of a natural progression of this feature. We will keep you informed about any changes in the matchmaking system.
One more thing that we want to mention is the newly added moderation tool in the Global Chatroom. At the moment we have a complete team of moderators for the in-game chat so we are not hiring new ones for now. The in-game moderation feature is in the development, and we will inform you before a next expansion of the moderators’ team.
Last but not least, we are putting final tweaks on the rebalance of several Champions and this rebalance will be released in one of the nearest updates. Additionally, we are working on AI improvements, and if all goes as planned, they will also be included in the next patch.
So that’s it for today’s Raid Digest! Stay tuned for future updates in our official channels and take care!
Plarium - you continue to be tone-deaf to your player base. My current guild is essentially quitting enmasse because previous Gold IV players are struggling to maintain Gold II (at best).
Issues you should be focusing to reduce the loss of new players, drive down player attrition, and generally improve your playerbased:
Character Dupe system - you've been thinking on this for 18 months now - no update 1.5 years in is very disappointing
Silver - this is a problem - if you can use account-level and player power in Arean match-making, why not use it as a variable to reward the players who advance their accounts? 100 gold x account-level as bonus gold per dungeon run might be a good place to start.
Books - Another reason folks are leaving - no mechanism to grind books other than "open your wallet" - very rarely get a tome from Clan Boss - not enough to support the Epic and Legendary champions any time this decade
Playing time - to "get it all done" in a day I have to log in at least twice a day (clan boss key resets) and then to do all dailies it's 4-6 hours of painful grinding. Another reason people are quitting - 4 to 6 hours per day? Your goal should be 1.5 to 2 hours (max)
Arena - as the matchmaking exists right now it is NOT fun. As noted above my clan is essentially quitting because of the current painful match-making.
3v3 Arena - worse than the original arean - I rarely even battle here any more. Painful and not fun is the feedback I'd offer if you felt like listening. You know what might be more fun? Team 1 limited to champions from the Telerian Alliance (Banner Lords, High Elves, Sacred Order, Barbarians), Team 2 limited to the Gaellen Pact (Ogryn Tribes, Lizardmen, Skinwalkers, Orcs), and Team 3 being limited to The Corrupted (Demonspawn, Undead Hordes, Dark Elves, Knights Revenant). Once the Nyresan Union is complete you can increase to 4v4.
Quality of Life - add sorting and FILTERING options character inventory - I want to sort by level and filtered by Defense, or by restrict results to only High Elves ordered by name (dupe search), etc.
No where, just came with the 3.40 patch such as hidden nerf which is, was no where was in patch notes. You just think about, maybe the player base wont be angry, if they cant see this disgustful changes. Hidden nerf and changes, not a nice thing dear Plarium.
Thank you, @HumanHack for such a comprehensive list of interesting suggestions. We will communicate those to game designers. Thank you for the contribution!
Hi, guys! We just received a lot of comments from players, who faced some difficulties in the Gold Tiers of the Arena. Thus we decided to clarify the game mechanics behind the scenes of the Arena a little bit.
However, we understand that many players experience some hard time on the Bronze and Silver Tiers. I reassure you that we see your comments but, generally, it would be easier to address your concerns if we could see your Champions' roster.
Our game designers are working on the improvement of the Arbiter's missions flow and during the process, they take into account all the statistics available to them.
Also, we are grateful for all the suggestions (with Books farming improvement, Champions filtering and general Champions rebalance being among most often asked) and we will discuss those matters with the game-design team.
Duped legends. Really? The design team thinks that being able to tag your second Bystophus / Visix / any other shitty unuseable lego is the solution?
Books. Are you never going to implement a way to farm them? Potions, masteries, why not books?
And ofc, the need to address those legends that are way worse than any epic. Would be nice if, for once, you lend some attention to your customers' petitions.
However, we understand that many players experience some hard time on the Bronze and Silver Tiers. I reassure you that we see your comments but, generally, it would be easier to address your concerns if we could see your Champions' roster.
I apprecaite the feedback and interaction Oracle - but I really don't see why to be honest - multiple people are telling you they are getting teams against them in bronze 1-4 that are often at least double the team power - it's the player power issue and MM algorithm that is being ignored.
This is a variation my team - and I've tried multiple variations with MM, Ignatius etc. Kael here is full masteries, all have okayish kit. The whole team generally goes before the opposition so speed, def down, attack down and attack up, nuke.
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And this is an example of what I'm getting in low bronze 2. I can do the cheesy speed, def down, nuke variations and almost always go first - yet I simply can't kill them at least half the time because they're either overpowered for my team, full of strong legos and/or have shields or better kit which both are more or less invisible until you click start.
I never see a team with less power than mine other than the odd solo that pops up.
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Now I could farm dragon for weeks for kit to be able to get out of bronze 2/3 - but should I really need to? Will I even be able to get to Silver? Is it a total waste of time (seems so)?
A clan mate cut his player power down to about 300 and then sailed up into silver 2 for a while. That is the issue.
Let me put this way. Have a free account level 60 with arena power points of 937. Grinding Syl, Achak, Madame, and Kael with all level 60 for a total of 71K team power. Of the 10 runs, gone against 38 out of 40 at level 60 (most teams are +90K power), won 2/10. Refreshing didn't do anybetter. I am back to beginning of areana points 900. Is it me or the matchup is not really a matchup? If it were a fair matchup, i would presume the different in team power would be +-5k. Keep in mind I was only fighting in Bronze tier 1. Just imagine the destruction I would have to face in Bronze tier 2. Am sure there are many suggestions out there and this one of them. Start out by matching up the team total power such as +-5K power difference in the Bronze and +-10k in silver.
I have 2 F2P accounts. I did this because I enjoy the game but in the beginning I was so short on resources, that I started the second account to fill in my wait times to refill energy on 1 account with playtime on the second. My first acct. is level 74 with a "power" of 1.6mil, while my second acct. is level 73 with a "power" of 1.5mil. Apparently, after almost 2 years of F2P playtime, I am classed with the upper level players based on the number of Champions I have and the number of gear pieces I have.
I can't stress enough how LUDICROUS this is! This entire game is RNG based! On Acct. 1 I have 4 speed lead Champions for Arena and other things. On Acct. 2 I have NONE! After nearly 2 years of summoning Champions with the Shards that I receive in-game, I have summoned 2 LEGENDARY CHAMPIONS on each Acct. and Scyl of the Drakes, on each Acct. With the lack of in-game resources, it takes a huge amount of time to level and book the very few Champions worth the resources to progress to any level of play, and Arena is no exception. I have a team, on Acct. #1, that has a team power of 149, and am slowly regressing from Gold 4 (where I was like so many others) and currently sit in Silver 4. I'm trying to beat teams with a listed power of 95 (4 fully ascended Legendary Champions) and getting 1 shot. These teams have a listed power almost 1/2 of my teams listed power, and I'm not even able to get in a shot!!!! These teams are fielding a team with twice my ACCOUNTS number of Legos (and they probably have more to choose from) and they are in Bronze and Silver tiers in the ARENA.
So......I don't even bother any more!!! My time in Arena is spent ONLY to satisfy the Daily Quests in order to get my free Energy every day. I do the minimum 5 runs in Classic and 5 runs in Tag Team just to get the Energy. I have given up trying to progress my Great Hall.....it's just not going to happen.
As far as the "ARBITER MISSIONS" are concerned.....after almost 2 years of play, I am on mission 205 of 286......about 2/3 done. I might get my Arbiter some time next year!
I could go on.....but this thread is mostly about Arena, and I've said my peace on that topic.
In my opinion, it IS broken. I should not lose points if the match is a draw! I should not regress every week, after achieving a certain level! My team should not be matched against a team that clearly outclasses it......continuously! My team should not lose to a team that has 1/2 or less the team power of mine!
disappointing, pathetic, stupid, lazy, boring, unimaginative, disrespectful, arrogant, unhelpful etc etc etc response. Plarium wake up, this will not go away until it is fixed. Thousands of people will clamor about broken arena on all social media. This is not PR problem, this is game design problem. So just fix it instead of putting long dull digests out there.
The problem isn't that gold is competitive, it's that Bronze is crazy hard for new players, even those who can get through the other Arbiter missions with ease. In fact, the better you get at those other missions, the more likely you are to see only opponents you can't beat, since the matchmaking is based on account power.
But the more serious problem is yes, it was once easier to get to Gold, and no, that wasn't what you intended. But as a result all the players who were playing then got an easy path to Arbiter, and you gave out more Arbiters (and other rewards) and that itself makes it harder for players who weren't here for the easy rewards. You can't undo that, all you can do for fairness is to make it as easy for current new players to get Arbiter as it was for players who were here when Arena wasn't working the way you intended, either by making arena easy again (which you don't want to do) or by making the Arbiter missions easier to reflect the harder game environment current players face.
You guys missed the point that makes an otherwise great game very unenjoyable at this point. I'm mostly F2P but do an occasional purchase, so can't say that I don't spend the money, especially when it makes sense. However, as a new player (less than 2 months into the game), I'm stuck in a progression due to the flawed design:
1. Arena is way too hard. Moving from Bronze to Silver is next to impossible. I'm constantly facing teams with Scyl of the Drakes, multiple Legendaries, and way more powerful teams in general. Granted as a new player I didn't put enough focus on Arena in the beginning and now my account power (your new matching parameter) is on par with the teams I face but the development level is way different and I have nothing I can put against them at this time.
2. Too many things in the game tied to progress in Arena, which is gating development of the account right now:
Missions - been working on upgrading the hall to lvl 4 for the last 3 weeks but due to issue 1, I can hardly manage to stay in Silver, much less to farm it.
Challenges - I completed all except Arena, I stopped laughing at the requirements related to Gold arena, since I can't even manage to get medals from Silver. And yes, I watched all the guides, tried multiple teams' compositions, using my available characters and gear. I still can't compete!
Daily quests - arena and 3v3 arena can be completed only if I put my defense team as low level, so I'm dropped to lowest level every night. If I try to compete as I should - I can never win, for the very same reason outlined in item #1.
I'm not going to mention the quality of life (time required to play), the ridiculous silver situation in the game, the total absence of the books that I need to up my characters - there is plenty said about it and it hurt my account just as bad! I only ask 1 thing:
Fix the Arena, or remove it from required tasks!
If your business analysts are unable to come up with a viable way to fix the issue, give the task to devs to remove the freaking requirements that kill the game! Fess up to your failure and fix it, please.
Hi, guys! We just received a lot of comments from players, who faced some difficulties in the Gold Tiers of the Arena. Thus we decided to clarify the game mechanics behind the scenes of the Arena a little bit.
However, we understand that many players experience some hard time on the Bronze and Silver Tiers. I reassure you that we see your comments but, generally, it would be easier to address your concerns if we could see your Champions' roster.
Our game designers are working on the improvement of the Arbiter's missions flow and during the process, they take into account all the statistics available to them.
Also, we are grateful for all the suggestions (with Books farming improvement, Champions filtering and general Champions rebalance being among most often asked) and we will discuss those matters with the game-design team.
How do you want to see it? When I contacted support from the game, the first time they told me to come to the forums and the second time (just before THIS post by 2 days) they told me that player power has very little effect on matchmaking. Obviously the support people I emailed with have different information than you do. I can go ahead and email you with a screenshot of my team. I'm now on day 73, have been pushed down to silver 1, and due to me creating chickens for the fusion, your horrendously designed player matching system going off player power (once again... just who thought that was a good way to approximate team power? who? it is so far off base that it is mindboggling that anyone could believe that) has decided that since I have a lot of 4 and 3 star chickens, I'm suddenly a lot more powerful.
One example from my current possibilities:
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Their player power is 669k. Their account level is 57. My player power is 692. My account level is 57. Currently they are 1309 and I am 1319 (matchups since I started fusion prep have gotten bonkers). So, according to how you matchup accounts, we're even! However, I'm on day 73. My Kael has a player power of 24k. He is my strongest individual character BY FAR. We don't have similar account power regardless of what your "account power" metric says by any rational assessment.
